Well, perhaps not exactly the Waldorf, but certainly a place of comparable luxe and comfort.  For various reasons, some of which may in due time be disclosed, Mr. Muscato and I have hied ourselves up the road to Dubai for a silly minibreak (a term I first encountered in the diaries of Miss Bridget Jones and have always liked).

Having arrived mid-afternoon (following a dramatic escape from the confines of the office), we have already steamed away our troubles and are now, as the snap attests, doing our best to distance ourselves from the cares of the world in our nearly favorite kind of place, a good hotel's club lounge. If things are quiet around here for a bit, blame the excellent and caring staff of Mr. Hyatt's little hostelry...

I hope you'll pardon the hiatus of the last couple of days; Mr. Muscato and I have been off on a more-or-less unplanned little jaunt, courtesy of a friend in the travel business.  We are, you see, in the early stages of what chez nous is considered the busiest holiday season of them all:  Mr. Muscato's birthmonth.  Back home in WASP-land, we tapered off on birthdays by ten or so; not so, it seems, in Egypt, where birthdays are big business for, as they say at the circus, children of all ages.  In any case, various friends up in Dubai wanted to throw him a party, and at the same time, we got an offer to spend the weekend in what must be one of that very silly city's very silliest hotels at a highly advantageous rate.  Of course, we leapt at the chance.

The hotel in question is located out on The Palm, Dubai's man-made peninsula in the shape of a many-fronded tree surrounded by a halo of land that both acts as a breakwater and the home for a series of resorts.  The most famous of these, I suppose, is Atlantis, an overblown horror show I once wrote about after what the Mister and I realized was our last visit to The Palm, some four years ago.

Our hotel is a more recent arrival, a resplendent pile meant to recall the splendor and excess of the Ottoman empire, which, it must be admitted, to a creditable degree it does.  Unlike so much of Dubai, most of which is as humorlessly charmless as a place devoted to Fun at All Costs can be, it shows signs of having been designed with a certain wit.


Here, for example, is a quiet corner of the lobby.  The snap hardly does justice to the riot of colors and textures set against the limitless expanses of polished inlaid marbles, but whether or not one fully approves of the taste, one has to grant that it has a very definite Wow Factor.  As did our suite, the view from which appears up top (with Dubai doing a very creditable impression of a real city, in the distance; being on The Palm does give one lovely skyline views).  It was a dark and rather mysterious lair, with the walls colored a  burnished bronze that was offset with long panels of antiqued mirrors, a great deal of Louis-XIV-meets-a-belly-dancer furniture in black and gold, and a bathroom that would not have been at all out of place in a Gloria Swanson-Cecil B. DeMille epic.  If the place didn't also sport a spa that recalls in scale the Baths of Caracalla and in decoration the home of Miss Belle Watling, we might have just stayed in the suite all weekend.


Breakfast is served in a vast long gallery that's working hard to recall the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, but which seems in the end more like a department-store dining room of the mid-thirties.  The food was great, but I'm afraid my attention was riveted on this dear lady.  As with the snap of the lobby, this photo is but a pale indication of the splendor of her hairdo, even of her general presence. Sadly, we see the coiffure here on Day Two, when it was more than a tad deflated and even a little scruffy around the back.  The preceding morning it had been an orb, nearly perfectly spherical, made of descending rows of tidily arranged little curly waves; better preserved, I think, is the color scheme, which alternates patches of cotton-candy pink and an amber-yellow.  She seemed very proud of it.  Bless.

Oh, and that birthday party?  Well, few things on earth are less well organized than the average group of multinational Dubai-based confirmed bachelors, and apparently it's next weekend.  We didn't mind all that much; we steamed and swam and had very good massages and ate far too much and made good use of the Free Flowing Champagne offers on hand (and good stuff it was, too, not the usual sparkling vinegar Dubai seems to specialize in) and generally forgot how very dreary it can be at the office.  Back to reality tomorrow, but for moment, now that we're home and the dogs have calmed down, all's well.

So I'm off on a brief road trip - just up the highway to Dubai on an overnight, which is a regular enough sort of thing, but this time, for various reasons, I find myself in the tender care of a particularly de luxe client and so have the view seen above.  I am, in fact, rather to my surprise, ensconced in a suite at the Armani Hotel, an intimidatingly contempo entity that occupies a number of floors in the vast monstrosity that is the Burj Khalifa, for the moment The Tallest Building in the World.

And I have to say it's all very odd.  Stark in its opulent simplicity, the rooms around me (and I think I've found them all, although since all the walls appear to slide open and reveal other spaces, I'm not entirely sure) range in color and tone from high gloss ebony (I sit even now at a writing desk finished like a concert grand piano and of similar dimensions) through a matte gunmetal gray.  The elaborately layered draperies (which rise and fall at the touch of a button) are variations on those shades, as are the almost equally elaborately layered carpets (faux-fur edged plush area rugs artfully placed over a woven floor covering that at some distant point in its tortured history may have been grasses, but which now seems more like an enormously enlarged houndstooth wool).  The whole effect is - unexpectedly, given how determinedly futuristic it all is - oddly retro, in the sense that it seems quite thoroughly 1970s.  I half expect to find cocaine on one or another of its relentlessly textured surfaces.

Just concluded is what I very much hope is the last of this evening's massive son-et-lumiere spectacles focusing on the lake that fronts this vast tower (and it's discomfiting to think that looming over my head is something like 150 stories).  It features dancing fountains that throw water a dozen floors or more into the air, great clouds of rolling smoke effects, and dozens of jets that propel great gobbets of Oz-the-Great-and-Powerful flames, offset by whirling searchlights and a sub-Orffian Carmina Burana-esque score of thundering drums and roaring orchestra.  Quite exhausting.

Other than planning to plunder everything moveable in the way of toiletries and other disposables (which will doubtless deeply please the magpie side of Mr. Muscato), I really don't know quite what to make of the place.  I've just survived the ordeal of having to speak to my "Lifestyle Manager" in order to ask for a little room service, and soon I'll have to face the even worse trial of determining how to turn off all the lights in order to grab a little sleep in a bed as austere and unyielding as a Corbusier facade.  Frankly, it's making me nostalgic in the extreme for the deeply comfortable but comparatively dowdy digs we normally inhabit in Dubai when on our own or Golden Handcuffs' nickel.

Tomorrow, it's all back to reality, but right now I feel very Marisa-Berenson-shopping-at-Fiorucci, and while not even slightly the Armani type, I think perhaps I'll put a little Grace Jones on the iPod and pretend it's 1978 all over again.  If only I had the blow... but then again, at my age, I need my beauty sleep.  If I can figure out the bed, perhaps I'll get some.  Wish me luck.

Conveyor belt sushi in Dubai, presided over by a vast and beneficent geisha, for no reason at all.

On the road for a couple of days, darlings, at a talk shop in the big city (just up the road from the sleepier capital, but light years away in so many ways; where we are, conveyor belt sushi is just a fever dream from the future, although at last we have a decent deli.  Count your blessings, I suppose). 

For reasons unknown, the hotel hospitality gods have deposited me in a suite the size of my first three apartments combined, and as it's early morning here, I'm off to hunt up the shower in the bathing complex.  It must be there somewhere; I'd be better prepared, but having just found the kitchen, I also found myself totally defeated by the futuristic intergalactic coffee maker.  It involves little coffeeische capsules and a great deal of steaming water, but no clear indication of how to actually create coffee out of the two.

Presuming the shower is more tractable, I should at least be rewarded for the effort of talking endlessly about synergy and emerging creative strategies with people I never hope to see again by that staple of conferences everywhere, coffee delivered from traditional urns and accompanied by those slightly squashed little fruit danish that seem so inevitable at any business confab involving more than 25 people.  Wish me luck.

Mr. Muscato and I have heeded the good advice of Misses Caffey, Carlisle, Schock, Valentine, and Weidlin and are making the most of this President's Day weekend.  We've hied off to Dubai (just up the road, don't you know) to our favorite Big Silly Resort Hotel.

Fortunately, it's a place that is pretty much what Biosphere could have been had it been decorated by Messrs. Waldorf and Astoria (and, yes, I know there are no such people.  On the other hand, I firmly believe that had they existed, they wouldn't have sired anything as trashy as Paris Hilton, but we're heading very far off topic here).  It's lavishly over-the-top and entirely self-contained, from the dozen or so restaurants to the vast and highly environmentally suspect mini-rainforest that graces the multi-acre lobby.  It's a great place to be this weekend, as Dubai has been hit by what today seemed just about the worst sandstorm we've seen in our six-plus years out in these parts.

So here in our own little world (as the sand howls by outside and the view is reduced to what looks vaguely like a scene from Miss Gish's great epic The Wind), we've done what we like doing best on minibreaks:  nothing at all.  Breakfast, spa, lunch, spa, cocktails, dinner, collapse in room.  If we're terribly ambitious tomorrow, we'll mix it up a little bit and maybe throw in a massage or sit in the rainforest for an hour or two.  And you know what?  We've earned it, we need it, and on Sunday we'll drive back home (presuming it's possible to see more than a car-length by then) all the better for it.  God knows what mischief those damn dogs will have been up to, though...

Color me gobsmacked. Mr. Muscato and I just watched, live on Dubai TV, the opening of the Burj Dubai Khalifa. It reminds me, as someone once said of, I believe, the films of Cecil B. DeMille, that it's the kind of thing God would do, if he had the money.

Staged in the presence of Dubai's vision-man himself, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum (although, alas, his festive wife HRH Princess Haya of Jordan was nowhere to be seen), the spectacle combined the world's most overproduced time-share promotional film displayed on vast screens placed around the building; a dancing waters display that made Las Vegas's Bellagio look like a grade-school drinking fountain; a score that was equal parts Wagner, Moroder, and a low-rent bellydance CD; and, finally, fireworks.

We're not talking your common, garden-variety July 4 fireworks - we're talking cannonades of fireworks; fireworks launched from neighboring towers (their measly 50 or so stories dwarfed by the new tower's 160); fireworks rising out of the ornamental lakes surrounding the tower; and, most jaw-droppingly, fireworks bursting out of what seemed like every inch of the 800+ meter tall building itself.

All it needed was Bette Midler popping up in the palm of a life-size King Kong replica at say the 130th floor to sing "Lullabye of Broadway" to be absolutely perfect, but I'm afraid intentional camp is not something with which Sheikh Mo is terribly familiar.

Dubai gets a lot of bad press, but I have to hand it to them - they know how to throw a housewarming. Still, I fear, there may have been a bittersweet quality to it all for the host, who at the last moment found himself announcing the surprise renaming of the new monument. The former Burj Dubai now glorifies his fellow Emir, Khalifa of Abu Dhabi, who perhaps-not-coincidentally has come through with billions of dollars to help keep the whole show running in recent months. A nice gesture, I suppose, even if not, one suspects, entirely a voluntary one.

Well, our Eid mini-break was a smashing success, interrupted by moments of trauma and ending up with a domestic disaster.

Good stuff first: a lovely trip, really, visiting both the usual destination for depravity in these parts, Dubai, and several of its satellite emirates (one, Abu Dhabi, is actually the center off which the others, even Dubai - especially Dubai, these days - depend, but don't tell Dubai that). We lazed poolside at our favorite hotel and were pummelled into submission by large, stern Indian masseurs. We ate and, yes, drank immoderately. We shopped, we caught up on the local gossip (the general opinion: the bottom, although perhaps not yet here, may be in sight, although it's still dispiriting to see all the half-finished towers languishing), and in general we enjoyed life on a slightly larger scale than is generally possible in our own little Sultanate.

We also got lost, a lot, for signage is not always this region's long suit, especially given how frequently, up in the Emirates, construction has gone on well ahead of common sense, meaning that you will realize just as an exit ramp fades into the rear-view that the sign really meant... all very boring. On the other hand, we certainly did see parts of the various statelets that we would have missed by going direct from points A to B.

And let's not even talk about the traffic. Mr. Muscato and I agreed that one of the less salubrious developments over our time in this part of the world is that the Sultanate's drivers have in that time managed to catch up with and even exceed their neighbors in sheer badness of driving, with the local specialities - extreme tailgating and signal-free lane weaving - adding a very special frisson to the travel experience.

It's as if driving offered the normally congenitally mild-mannered and intricately polite local citizen an irresistably enticing outlet for aggression and rudeness, one which they seize with highly uncharacteristic gusto. When you're surrounded with worse drivers than those in Cairo or Dubai, you know you're facing some of the world's most challenging roads. Sadly, the local fatality statistics reflect the situation all too accurately, and I'm starting to be surprised that the Powers What Be, normally so concerned with maintaining the image of pristine perfection in regard to all things local, haven't taken more vigorous steps.

Our homecoming, alas, was not quite the idyll promised above by the euphoniously enamed Cyril Ornadel and his terribly formal-sounding Westminster Orchestra of London (which also seems vaguely redundant - one wouldn't expect, after all, a Westminster Orchestra of Bucharest, would one?). No, indeed; we instead were faced with a distraught Ermilia and tales of a broken pipe and an inundation that wreaked havoc upstairs, including completely flooding our cosy parlor.

The combination of the climate and the concrete construction used to create the Villa Muscato (and all its neighbors, for that matter) pretty much guarantees a slow drying-out and the possibility of vicious molds, but fortunately Ermilia is extremely resourceful and had already marshalled a platoon of plumbers, cleaners, and other necessities, likely minimizing the longer-term difficulties. As it is, we may be in the catbird-seat position of at last persuading the landlord to remove several rooms of regrettable wall-to-wall and possibly even a full bathroom makeover. We shall see.

The dog, of course, was quite delighted by the chaos and the chance, disgusting creature, to roll around on sodden rugs. It could all have been a great deal worse, but as it is we've lost a stack of books (don't you keep some handy in the bathroom?), will have distinctive strips of lost finish around the feet of various pieces of furniture, and will have to make unaccustomed use of our mostly-for-company downstairs drawing room until we regain possession of the flood zone. Bother.

But we've resolved not to let all that interrupt our enjoyment of our last day of Eid holiday, instead working to maintain our mini-break-induced zenlike calm so as to be ready for what promises to be a busy few months. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone, and I for one don't plan to let a little extra water here and there distract me from a last day of lounging, reading, and a little something cooling. Just like Mr. Ornadel's be-peignoired pal up there, in fact.

Well, we're home, and in one piece, or rather in as many pieces as we left and no more, which is a good thing, you see, because en route out of Dubai we had a little accident. Not really serious - the Muscato Mobile is disfigured and humiliated, but more or less driveable, if carefully.

The culprit who rammed us was a gentleman who had chosen, on a fine Saturday morning, to become drunk as a lord before twelve noon and go out for a spin in order to catch up, it seems, on his telephoning and chain smoking. It's some measure of how completely schnockered the poor loser was that he is Emirati, we're not, and still the police had no compunction in immediately declaring him at fault.

But before all that, our trip was everything a naughty minibreak should be.

We had a lovely evening at the nitespot pictured (and discreetly blurred), a regular haunt of the city's confirmed bachelors. It was a gloriously not-broiling evening, and we held court under the palms, Mr. Muscato and I, with all sorts of chums and acquaintances.

About half our friends seem to be doing better than ever, and the other half are either moving in with them or heading back to their countries of origin. Whatever the economic situation, though, the boys were out in force and it was a pleasure to see them.

The view from our lodgings did finally appear from the haze, and as promised it included, in the distance, the city's much-vaunted new attraction, The Atlantis. You'll get an idea of the size of the thing by knowing that in this picture it's about ten kilometers away.

Having never been on the Palm (whose villa-choked fronds are in the foreground), we decided after brunch yesterday to motor out in the company of The Hotelier and his visiting friend, whom I suppose we must refer to as The London Hotelier.

And now at least we can say we've been, and the best thing is we need never, ever return.

The décor is Disney on steroids, executed with the kind of ponderous solemnity associated more with the works of Albert Speer than a holiday resort. American kitschmeister Morris Lapidus described his style as "an Architecture of Joy"; this is the infinitely more dreary "Architecture of Mandatory Fun."

The place was overrun with tourists - guests and visitors alike - of a seemingly infinite number of nationalities, each and every one of whom would have immediately, once upon a time, been classified by Society Grandmother Muscato as "not quite our kind, darling." Harsh, but true, true, true.

Getting almost as much attention as the massive aquariums, stuffed with tropical sealife of all kinds, or the dazzlingly horrid shops (who do they really expect to buy a yellow diamond and black pearl parure complete with tiara in a place like that?) was the lobby's pièce de résistance, a sculpture by Dale Chiluly (and what upscale tacky resort is complete without one of those?). The Hotelier describes it as "a four-story high closeup of a very unhappy nerve," and that about sums it up.

We repaired our own shattered nerves with a sundowner evening in the garden of friends of The Hotelier, who live in a (comparatively) old and (comparatively) tranquil neighborhood, in a wonderful small villa surrounded by bougainvillea. It felt like one of the places I remember from West Africa, making it all the more surreal to look up and see, glittering in the distance, the misbegotten towers of Sheikh Zayed Road.

And now, replete with three days of rich food and good company, we're back in our own little house. Koko was very pleased to see us, as you can imagine, and while everyone on the other side of the Atlantic heads into the Memorial Day weekend, we've finished ours and go back, such as it is, to reality.

As dear Mr. Porter once observed, there is indeed no cure like travel, and for that reason Mr. Muscato and I are taking a little Bridget-Jones-style minibreak, running up to Dubai once more for a fix of glamor, sophistication, and candles and other local nonobtainables from Ikea.

Thanks to our dear pal The Hotelier we are ensconced in a very comfortable suite (oh, we live the Life Deluxe, on discounts, doncha know) with sweeping views of - haze. If and when the haze clears, I'm assured we will have views of the Palm, the Burg al-Arab, and, of course, this being Dubai, construction sites.

Sign of the changing times: we started the festivities with dinner last night at a very good, and at one time very hot, seafood spot. The last time we ate there, we got the very last table, on a combination of pleading, proof of reservation, and finally a discreet little cadeau. It's one of those places with several areas (formal dining, café, bar, terrace, etc.), each with a different menu, and there were all sorts of strict rules about what dish could be served in which zone, and how this wasn't possible, sir, and that wasn't possible, madam, and so very sorry...

Last night, we swept in reservationless, sat in state at a very lovely table with a very lovely view, had the hostess (and an armada of staff) tending to us as if we were the wounded at Gallipoli, were presented with a great heap of all the various menus combined, and heard repeatedly what seems to be the new mantra of the straitened era in which we find ourselves, oh, no, sir, nothing is too much trouble...

Lord, to paraphrase Miss Dinah Washington, what a difference an international economic collapse makes!

Well, we went there and back again, and I have to say we had a lovely time. I hope a little Tiresome Travel Blogging won't offend too many. I will try to leaven it with trenchant social commentary and can promise at least one genuine Star Sighting, if that will help.

We started our little whirlwind getaway, Mr. Muscato and I, with a couple of days at a glamourous desert resort, just the place to unwind, relax, and stare at sand:

This is the view from our suite, really a sort of pavilion, which came with canvas roof, lovely wraparound teak deck, and (the place's big selling point) our own Private Plunge Pool. Which was exactly as much decadent fun as that sounds. The place also prides itself on its exciting desert activities, but they struck both of us as far too strenuous, and we limited ourselves to more leisurely pursuits:

Here we see Mr. Muscato exercising vigourously in the complex's main pool, which lies just outside its splendid spa, itself just down the hill from a central building that recalls something along the lines of an (even more) Arabesque San Simeon.

The cook, who is apparently Kenyan, is a Genius, and that's all I can say. We feasted, we sunned, we spa-ed, and, after an all too short two days, we headed into Dubai proper.

The Death of Dubai, to steal from Mr. Clemens, is a claim highly exaggerated. The place seemed somewhat less jammed than it had last year, but the restaurants, malls, cafés, and nightclubs (at least the generous sampling of each that we tried) seemed unaffected by Total Global Malaise.

Above is the view from our room at a local hostelry. The yellow structure at the right is in fact the Dubai Metro under construction; when complete, this neo-monorail will snake through much of the city, most of it above-ground. Here, at least, it will give a bird's-eye view of the hotel pool.

We really did keep busy. In addition to the obligatory spa-time (why else does one travel?), we actually caught some culture: we went to the Dubai Art Fair. If you ever want to know what the au courant sheikh is looking for in the way of a sofa painting, I can now tell you. Actually, some of it was rather splendid, and certainly no expense was spared in turning the massive Madinat Jumeirah hotel/ballroom complex that was the venue into a worthy rival to Basel, Miami, or other similar Art destination.

The highlight, from my perspective, was an incredible exhibition of jewels by Van Cleef & Arpels, ranging from the tiara that Princess Grace wore to her daughter Caroline's (first) wedding to some bracelets of the Duchess of Windsor to some amazing examples of their signature "Mystery" pavé settings. I especially lusted after a truly jaw-dropping necklace-collar of carved emeralds, diamonds, and pearls. So practical.

Joining us in ooh-ing and ah-ing was none other than Miss Glenn Close, in town we later read to lecture to film students one Emirate over and looking charming in what can only be referred to as Resort Wear (patterned raw silk tunic over loose linen trousers that Mother Muscato would have referred to as Palazzo Pants). I did the usual double-take and caught the lady's eye just in time to look fascinatedly at a brooch of Barbara Hutton's. She seemed relieved both to have been recognized and not to have been approached - simultaneously, I suppose, validated and unbothered. She has gorgeous skin.

We caught up with the many Boys of Dubai who form our cercle in the Emirates, hearing all the latest gossip (considerable) of course, and among other things having a lovely dinner at the Yacht Club, a creekside venue with to-die-for views.

We also hit one of the evening establishments much favored by Confirmed Bachelors and can solidly affirm that there is no shortage of them in these parts. And they tend to wear regrettable club clothes, but to have the bodies to get away with them.

Finally - and for the first time ever, which suprised even us - we took advantage of one of Dubai's legendary Friday pastimes: the Depraved Champagne Brunch. Above we see an impressionistic study of one of the other brunchers, who represents the greater part of the clientèle: gangs of British gals, scary hen parties clad almost uniformly in acid-colored sack-shaped minidresses, vertiginous faux-Blahniks (Fauxniks?), and extreme coiffures. This is very definitely the Look of the Moment, for what it's worth, should you find yourself brunching in these parts any time soon.

So what did we learn, on our little sojourn out of the ordinary? We learned to love phrases like "at your service, sir," and "pillow menu". We learned that Bad Festival Art (only slightly leavened with better stuff) is now truly an international commodity, and that Glenn Close is not as short as you expect most movie people to be (she does have the requisite big head, though, to look good on camera). We learned that we like not working very much, thank you, but, perhaps best of all, we learned that we were glad to come home to our quiet little Sultanate and the unbridled affection of Koko.

So what's next?

Just back from a mini-break in fabulous Dubai - an inexplicable mingling of Miami, Vegas, and some Arabian Nights fantasy dropped down for no good reason (except vast, vast, vast amounts of money) where the desert meets the sea.

Mr. Muscato and I always have fun there, if only because the people watching is better than anywhere I've ever been except for Times Square back in The Day. Tiny veiled crones stare balefully at six-foot blonde Russian models in spike heels and Versace, hot men in sheikh drag ogle muscle boys from Tokyo, Kampala, and Helsinki, and it appears that everyone wears Serious Diamonds.

It's not the real world, but it's a lot of fun while it lasts.